Infrared thermography based defect detection in ferromagnetic specimens using a low frequency alternating magnetic field

•A new IRT technique is developed for defect detection in ferromagnetic materials.•Low frequency magnetic field induced heating is used.•The MFL increases with defect depth, whereas, temperature contrast decreases.•The temperature contrast decays exponentially with defect depth.•Temperature decay rate increases with decreasing defect depth. A new active infrared thermography based technique is proposed for defect detection in ferromagnetic specimens using a low frequency alternating magnetic field induced heating. The test specimens (four mild steel specimens with artificial rectangular slots of 8.0, 5.0, 3.3 and 3.0mm depths) are magnetized using a low frequency alternating magnetic field and by using an infrared camera, the surface temperature is remotely monitored in real time. An alternating magnetic field induces an eddy current in the specimen which increases the specimen temperature due to the Joule’s heating. The experimental results show a thermal contrast in the defective region that decays exponentially with the defect depth. The observed thermal contrast is attributed to the reduction in induction heating due to the leakage of magnetic flux caused by magnetic permeability gradient in the defective region. The proposed technique is suitable for rapid non-contact wide area inspection of ferromagnetic materials and offers several advantages over the conventional active thermography techniques like fast direct heating, no frequency optimization, no dependence on the surface absorption coefficient and penetration depth.